Today is Constitution Day, the 239th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution to conclude the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. I have a controversial opinion: The Constitution is good, and we should keep it. We should also recognize that most of the ways in which its functioning is broken are the consequences of departing from the original design.
When the Framers met at Philadelphia, they had dueling challenges. On the one hand, the Revolution and the Articles of Confederation had struck a blow against centralized power. On the other hand, they left behind a Balkanized collection of 13 squabbling sovereigns (14, if you counted Vermont) with an ineffectual federal government. One consequence was trade protectionism that divided the states from one another (a legacy of British colonial barriers to trade between and among the colonies). So, how to create a federal government that would actually do the things only a national government can do — without losing the whole point of limiting centralization?
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